You're Not Real
by TheTenthDoctorIsMyGuardian
Summary: 14 years old Erin has got a bit of a troubled life, and copes with it the only way she knows. Sometimes, life is like climbing a mountain, and sometimes real people just aren't enough to get through.
1. My Math Teacher

**A/N: Right. New fic. I don't actually have an idea about whether or not I'm going to continue this or whether I'll just leave it as a one-shot, but I hope I keep writing this because I think this chapter isn't as good as I could have done. Anyway, just remember that this chapter would probably be the worst chapter, so don't go too harsh on it.**

"Solve this equation for me," said my math teacher mercilessly.

"I can't," I said numbly.

"Do it with me, then," he said, in a tone that could have been mistaken for kind if he hadn't been shouting and if my throat hadn't been burning with my desperation not to cry in front of everyone. "What's the first step that needs to be done here?"

"I don't know," I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

"Just think," he said, clearly frustrated. "We've been over this lots of time in class and lots of time in private lessons as well, it's easy!"

I could feel the other kids' eyes boring into me, as if seeking to find the most vulnerable part of me and stab it over and over again, until I'm bleeding on the ground.

"What's the first step?" he asked again, now plainly shouting.

"_I don't know_," I hissed, my heart beating hard with anger and frustration.

"Well, then what the hell am I teaching you for? If you don't want another F you need to do this right now! What's the first step?"

"I don't know!" I shouted back. "And shouting at me sure as hell isn't gonna change that!"

"What can change it, then?" he bit back.

"Nothing!" I shouted, tears definitely stinging my eyes now, though my throat still ached, the kind of ache that just makes itself worse in each passing moment.

There were several moments of quiet, in which Mr. Thompson turned away from me angrily and started scribbling at the board, until Callie spoke.

"It's really hard to solve these things under pressure," she said, defending my honor, for which I was grateful. "I mean, you keep saying that people work better under pressure and that it's bad for them to be too relaxed, but it's not like that."

"You can talk," snapped Mr. Thompson. "All you ever do in my lessons is painting."

Callie looked like she started regretting saying anything, drawing the teacher's attention, but she didn't back away. "I already told you a billion times," she said desperately, "it helps me concentrate. I can't listen unless I'm doing something."

"If it helps you so much how come you're still failing, too?" he asked nastily.

Callie said nothing. She was now on the verge of tears as well.

And that was my lovely math teacher. When it came to tact, consideration or not being an asshole, it just kind of didn't suit him. The good kids, the ones who were good at math and therefore the kids he liked, said that it was bitterness because he was in his thirties, balding and single. Some agreed with that logic, but I didn't. I just thought he was a crappy person.

Despite what you may think, he actually quite liked me. He said so more than once. I think he thought I was funny. But that didn't mean much, because he thought he was funny, too, which he really kind of wasn't. Still, the liking didn't stop him for treating me like scum. Again, crappy person.

When the bell finally rang I was the first one out the door. I was pleased it was our last lesson for the day. I really didn't want to walk around the school in such a bad mood. Walking around the streets to the bus stop didn't make that much of a difference, but at least I was free to do what I want and listen to my music and whatever.

I was sitting on a battered wooden bench when April and Davin showed up. April was my best friend since we were nine. Davin's name wasn't really Davin, it was actually Jake, and his full name was Jake Davin, but we've been calling him Davin since fifth grade. I don't really know why.

"We're on your side," said April about a second after I pulled out my earphones, sitting on the bench next to me, Davin sitting next to her. "He can be a douche sometimes."

"No kidding," I said, as if it wasn't such a big deal.

"Callie was right, he really can't expect anyone to be able to solve an equation while getting screamed at," said April. "I hope they sack him."

"Won't that be a laugh," I said with a smirk.

Davin was quiet. He wasn't really good at cheering people up, but I didn't hold it against him, because I was far worse. I just wasn't good with people. Well, most people. I was good with my friends.

"The test's next week, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Davin. "On Friday."

"Such a waste of a Friday," I said mournfully.

"You gonna study?" asked April knowingly.

"Nah," I said. "I'd probably just try not to fail."

"Wanna try studying together?" she offered. "I don't know anything, either. It could help the both of us."

"April, the last time we tried that we both nearly failed."

"Nearly!" said April. "We would've failed if we hadn't studied together."

"No, I would've," I said. "Don't ruin things for yourself just to make me almost not terrible. One of us has gotta turn out okay."

"Erin…" said April exasperatedly.

"I'm just kidding," I said, though I wasn't really. "I'll study, and you'll study, but studying together is just a bad idea."

And for the next forty minutes, everything was just fine. We all got off the bus at our stop, April turning left for another bus stop to get a bus home, Davin and I turning right for the street in which we both lived. One of my best friends was my neighbor, which was very handy, because my place was where the three of us would usually hang out in. I don't know why we never hung out at Davin's place, because it was just as good. It just became a thing, I suppose, because April and Davin liked the fact that I always had some chocolate and I didn't really like having to interact with other kids' parents. I don't know why, I just always got incredibly awkward talking to my friends' parents.

For five minutes Davin and I cracked jokes and I named a cat I didn't see before McGonagall, and then Davin crossed the road to his house and I skipped down the many stairs that led to mine. I liked telling people that there was a road and a jungle between my house and Davin's, but calling it a jungle was serious exaggeration. It was some depressingly brown trees and bushes and dangerous stairs.

I unlocked the door and entered my room. I put my schoolbag down (threw it, actually) and lay face first on my bed. I was kind of a ritual for me. I usually did that when I got home from school. There was no particular reason for that. My bed was just comfortable.

"Bad day?" asked a familiar voice.

I didn't jump. I didn't even move at first. Then I sat up in bed, pulling my feet to my chest.

My room was empty, but only if I tried making it so. If I just looked at it plainly, I could see a man in a bowtie, silly hair and very little eyebrows standing slap bang in the middle of my room. It was the Eleventh Doctor, which was, of course, impossible.

"Shut up," I said. "You're not real. And yeah, it's kind of a shitty day."

"Math again?" he asked, not unkindly.

"Mr. Thompson is just a lovely fellow," I said with a nod. "And anyway, it's none of your business. I don't tend to tell not real people about my day."

"Liar," he said with a smirk.

"Shut up."

"You've had loads of other not real people around before me, though, didn't you?" asked the Doctor casually. "There was Harry Potter, and then there was Artemis Fowl, and then there was Harry Potter again, then you've had Fred Weasley –"

"Yeah, well, I was eight," I said curtly.

"You're not eight now," he said.

"Don't remind me."

He smiled sadly. "Why can't you just accept that I'm here?" he asked.

"Because you're not," I said. "You're literally not here. I'm just pretending you are. Even now, I'm talking to thin air."

"You used to think I was real," he reminded me.

"No, I hoped you were," I said. "There's a difference. And there's nothing wrong with having fictional characters as your imaginary friends. You know, not as long as you're sane and not murderous. Then it's an illness and not very fun."

We were quiet for a few moments, before he said, "What was today?"

I shrugged. "Just Mr. Thompson's usual bullying and humiliation. The usual drill. He basically shouted at me that I was stupid in front of the entire class, then went for Callie when she tried defending me. You'd expect him to understand, being dyslexic and all that."

"He's not seriously dyslexic, though, is he?" asked the Doctor, reflecting my own thoughts. "It's just a bit for him, he hardly ever has a hard time reading or writing."

"Yeah, it's probably why he thinks Callie and I can do these things properly," I said. "He has something that makes everyone else who have it suffer, but he only suffers a little and thinks it's not a big deal. I was the same about ADD when I was little, before it got this bad. People just never understand how it works, and it's not something you can explain, so they just think of it like a barrier that can be climbed past, when really it's more like a huge brick wall and you've no way across."

"Didn't you say it was like climbing a mountain?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, yeah, that too," I said. "It's like climbing a mountain with a defected leg. At first, when it's not too steep a climb, you do just as well as everyone else, but when the climb gets difficult you're behind everyone else and you just really want to sit down for a bit but you can't, because then you'll lose sight of everyone climbing with you. And you shout for help, but no one can do anything because there's nothing to be done, so you just keep limping on. And sometimes, from the top of the mountain, experienced climbers try shouting instructions at you, but they're so far up you can hardly hear, and even when you do their instructions doesn't help, because it only works for people with a specific leg defect that's different from yours. And Mr. Thompson is like another one of the climbers who are already done with the climb, except he has a defected leg too. So he thinks that climbing a mountain with a bad leg is definitely possible, because he doesn't know that everything that's wrong with his leg is that it's got a few scratches or something, while your leg has a wound so deep the bone is visible."

"And you have to keep climbing?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, not really," I said. "But along the climb you can see people who have stopped, who have sat down just like you want to do so badly, and they're all either dead or dying or the saddest people in the world."

"That's deep."

"Shut up."


	2. A Science Project

I can't remember how the conversation started, or what followed it. Mainly because I wasn't part of that conversation. I wasn't exactly eavesdropping, either. It was just a loud kind of argument, the way arguments always were with Jerome, and arguments just seemed to be attracted to Jerome, though it probably was the other way around. I think Jerome needed someone to shout his opinions at just as much as I needed to eat.

The only thing I can remember is that Jerome said people with learning disabilities shouldn't be given special treatment. Well, he kind of shouted it at the room. I doubt he knows another way of communication. He's sensitive like that.

I also remember April and Davin telling him that yes, they did, and I remember him saying they just needed to be trained out of their disability, which to me sounded like he wasn't really getting the point of the word _disability_. So then April and Davin told him that it doesn't work like that, and he said that it did, and to emphasize his statement he shouted, "No, you're right, and idiots should get their marks raised!" Which didn't collide well with the _confidence_ idea I was having trouble grasping. So they both got annoyed and Davin told Jerome that he couldn't say things like that and that he didn't know anything about learning disabilities anyway. Jerome said that he could say whatever he wanted and that he didn't need to know anything about that, because he knew a lot about people, which was just not true as Jerome seemed to be stuck in a Jerome-ish bubble since somewhere around seventh grade and didn't really have a correct understanding of how the world worked.

"Exactly," said the Doctor in my ear. "He doesn't really understand it and you can't listen to him and let him bring you down."

"But that's kind of the point, isn't it?" I asked, inside my head so that I don't look like I was hallucinating, which I really wasn't. "I know he's a moron, but the world seems to be built of quite a lot of them. I don't want anyone thinking I'm stupid because I'm not, and in the end it's people like him who've got control over about ninety percent of the human population."

"It's not –"

"Well, that's how it seems! I'm sick of people thinking they're better than me because I've got issues I have to deal with every single day while they're just fine. And you keep saying that everyone's special and that everyone's important, but what is that worth if you get treated like a brain damaged cow?"

The Doctor didn't have anything to say at that, and he faded away from my world and I couldn't see him anymore. I guessed that meant even my own brain couldn't come up with anything to make me feel like I was worth a damn, which wasn't at all very reassuring.

By the time we had science, my mood was already pretty close to very bad.

We were separated into groups because we were working on a big project. My group's thrilling and exciting project was mostly not thrilling and not exciting and included seeds and water of different temperatures and quite a lot of salt. My group consisted of me, April and Jerome.

I didn't have anything helpful to do. Not a thing. For about half an hour all I did was actually sit in a chair and not get in the way, like a trained monkey. That was thirty minutes of staring into space and thinking about absolutely nothing.

I came back to real life when Jerome got up and said, "Erin, are you coming to help me?"

I rarely ever felt this dumb outside math class. "Help with what?" I asked, sounding not very confident but still a lot more than I felt.

I could see the exasperation and arrogance in Jerome when he said, "Try out different dozes of salt to see how much we're going to need."

That was when I panicked.

I have two very different panicking modes. One, which usually involves my mum and/or math, was basically just crying and becoming incapable of everything. Two, which was happening right then, was very quiet and harder to notice, and included me looking like a scared animal and having trouble forming speech.

So I was very grateful when April, probably upon noticing me going freaked-out-horse at the universe, had quickly said, "I'll go help. Erin, can you change what we wrote so that it fits? Just change everywhere it says test tube into dish, and everywhere it says earth into cotton, alright?"

"Sure," I said.

So I did. And I did it bloody brilliantly. So that probably meant I could now call myself "A little bit more than a trained monkey", which was something, too.

That thought lasted about three seconds and was quickly replaced by anger and frustration. I didn't even know who or what I was angry with, I just felt like punching someone in the face, even though a slap would have done just fine as well.

"Have you corrected everything?" asked April when she came back from the school lab with Jerome.

"Yep," I said.

"Awesome," she said with a grin. "Can you keep these in your locker?" And she handed me a dish and a pipette.

"Sure," I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt. Not annoyed at April. She didn't do anything wrong and did everything right. Just annoyed that this is who I was. The girl who spaces out when she shouldn't, sits around doing nothing and keeps the stuff in her locker. I wondered how much longer it would take for me to start keeping other kinds of stuff in my locker; more addictive stuff. I hoped it would take longer than I thought.

"You can't think that," said the Doctor firmly. "You know you're not going to do anything of the sort, you're better than that, you're _smarter _than that."

"Yeah," I said glumly. "Whatever."

"Listen to me, you're not a train monkey," insisted the Doctor. "You're brilliant and you're special and you're extraordinary and everyone who loves you knows that, and in the end that's what matters. You will not do anything of the sort."

"Yeah, so we all keep saying, but we both know I'm inevitably screwed," I snapped. "You know that no matter how you look at it I'm bound to do something like take a funny looking pill or use that skinny little syringe and you know that I'm bound to get screwed up forever. You _know_ that I have no choice but committing myself to a drug of some kind eventually! You know that, I know that, hell, even my mum knows that! _It's all in the genes_. My dad did it and his mum did it and I'm going to do it, too, okay? So what's the point in denying it?"

"The point is that it hasn't happened yet," the Doctor said forcefully. "Nothing about your future is set in stone; nothing is fixed about you yet. The only person who has the magnificent privilege of deciding what your life is going to look like is you, you and no one else! You can shape your life and your destiny into something beautiful, so don't you ever, _ever_ believe that it is not up to you and that you can give in."

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay."

"You're fine," he whispered, and I could nearly feel his hand on my shoulder. "And you're going to be just fine. You're going to be amazing."


	3. Let You Go

_January, 2014_

There's a boy in our class whose name is Nick. Nick is fourteen years old. Nick acts like a nine year old. Nick has issues understanding how the world works, but not at all like Jerome. He's hardly ever mean on purpose, and even when he is he's just trying to be cool or be funny. He's not a generally bad person. He's just annoying and acts like a cartoon character, so no one likes him much. He doesn't seem to notice this, so maybe it means we're not bad people for being terrible to him.

A month ago, Nick as started watching Doctor Who and is now technically a Whovian. But only technically, because being a Whovian is about more than liking a show. It's about living every single day of your life with it. It's about grieving for the characters you like and about the joy that can't be described well enough when something rare and pure and happy happens. But you can't tell a person that. You can't tell them that you don't think they're enough to be called fans, because that's a terrible thing to say and if I was ever told that I may seriously jump off a cliff feeling my whole life has been one great lie. A bit like Javert from Les Mis, except not all like it because Javert's story ended up tragic, at least in my opinion. So when Nick found out I own a replica of Eleven's sonic screwdriver, he asked me to bring it to school one day, and I figured, why not?

Tuesday morning, two days after he asked for it because I forgot to bring it on Monday, I grabbed the sonic and put it in my coat's inner pocket. I think that my coat is the only kind of feminine coat that has an inner pocket, so it makes me feel important in a bizarre way I don't understand well enough to explain. I could feel the sonic against my chest as I walked to the bus stop, and on the bus, and all the way to school, and then I took it out and it felt like there was something missing.

Throughout the day, Nick begged to play with it. I let him the first few times but then got angry and told him off for being annoying. Still, even when he had the sonic, I couldn't stop picturing scenes in which the Doctor, the real Doctor and not mine, showed up and found me with the replica and some shenanigans would probably happen. Except it didn't happen because the Doctor wasn't real.

"He's real to me," I thought forcefully. I didn't want to even acknowledge a reality in which the Doctor didn't exist, because that was too dull to consider. I refused to drop my faith in him completely, even if I knew. The Doctor has always been someone to rely on, to trust, and to be friends with. The Doctor was my friend, even the proper one, even though it was one sided. I cried with the Doctor and laughed with him and fell for him, but not the way everyone thinks of. I didn't fall in love with him, even though I love him. It was like a kind of friendship that I have never known or experienced before the Doctor entered my life.

"That's sweet," said my Doctor with a smirk.

"Shut it, will you?" I told him, but I was sharing his smile. "And anyway, I'm still cross with you."

"What for?" he asked defensively.

"For _regenerating_," I hissed. "That was not cool."

The Doctor smiled sadly. "No. No, it wasn't cool at all. But it had to happen someday. And at least I didn't die."

"I know," I said, "but you did die, didn't you? Except it's harder than that because you're still alive but you're no longer you. You just disappeared from existence, like you've never even been there."

"But I have been here," said the Doctor. "Remember me, okay?"

I sighed. "Of course I will," I said truthfully. "But it's not all about remembering. I remember your last form as well. I used to love it as much as I love you but that feeling faded away."

"You've got a metaphor for that?"

"As a matter of fact, yes I do," I said. "Imagine having someone you love. Really love. The 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you' kind of love. But then the person you love dies. And you grieve and you cry and you feel like you'll never heal, but only for a while. Then it goes away, and that's when you've moved on. But you still love them at that point. But as the time goes by, you meet someone else, and you fall in love with them. And eventually, that first person you used to love all that time ago isn't so important anymore. You remember them, and you remember loving them, but you don't feel it anymore. And I don't want that to happen to you, Doctor."

The Doctor looked even sadder when he said, "But that's what must happen. If you don't let go of a person you once loved, how can you ever live your life?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I don't want to let you go."

"That's why it's so hard. That's why you have to."

"I will," I said. "Eventually. But it might take a while."

"You _have_ to," the Doctor insisted. "Don't waste your life for me; I'm not worth it. I'm not worth any tiny piece of your life. You're that remarkable."

I smiled. "Okay," I said softly. "I won't."


	4. Scott And Shill

I'd like to tell you about Scott.

Scott was arrogant, blunt and objectifying. No one liked Scott, except for a few kids who were also arrogant or didn't see what a rubbish person he is. Most people hated Scott.

"I must be some kind of a genius!" he would bellow one day, when we'd get our science tests back. "I've had no idea about this last question and I got it absolutely right! I must be some kind of a genius!" Then he'd mainly say he's a genius over and over again, just to make sure everyone heard. Most people heard him the first time.

It all came down to education, in the end. His dad was a pretty important person somewhere, I think, but it was mostly because of his mum. She was famous because she was supposed to be really smart and mathy, and Scott really liked saying people came from all over the world to talk to her, which I think was a bit of an exaggeration.

Scott only got accepted to our class, which is for gifted kids, because of his mum. Most of the things he got into was because of his mum. Nobody ever mentioned that, of course. However, they did mention how amazing it is of him to reach such high marks while dealing with dyslexia. But Scott's dyslexia wasn't even that bad, and he just abused his special privileges to play his tablet during class instead of paying attention. That's where people are supposed to be impressed that he can do all that and still be good at school, but when it came to that, school really wasn't the most important thing in the world, nor did it inflect intelligence. Not usually, anyway.

Remember what I said about people who don't have it too bad thinking that they do and therefore those who do have it bad are just lazy or stupid? That's Scott. Sometimes I'd say something about not managing to understand something due to my inability to listen, and then I'd catch him giving me the most underestimating look you've ever seen. It was some sort of a mix of arrogance and disrespect and I hated it, because even though Scott was a douche, I still hated it when people thought I was stupid. It always burned, no matter who it was to think that.

It was only natural for us to get into a fight someday. A good fight, the kind of fight that gets you nowhere but makes you feel frustrated beyond every limit you once thought existed. The kind of fight people don't talk about much because they don't want to restart it, or just because they never knew it happened.

It all began when some kids started criticizing Mr. Thompson. Scott said he liked him. We then gave him some very good reasons not to. We were being very mature and logical, too. We said how rude and blunt he was, and how it was not okay to finish teaching us something the day before the test, and how he wasted all our lessons being what he called funny, and how sometimes he'd give you the look people usually give something very disgusting. Sometimes he'd look at you like you were some kind of damaged goods and that he'd really rather not have to try and teach that _thing_ anyway because whatever was wrong with it, it was beyond repair. It wasn't something teachers were supposed to do.

So Scott didn't like us disagreeing with him, because he was an idiot. So he blamed us for being bad students. Then everyone who were involved in the conversation when it's just started have vanished, leaving only Callie and me talking to Scott and Will, who was always called Shill. They both had the same basic point. That point was that Callie and I were very stupid. They used nicer words, mostly. At some point, when it got pretty serious and I was shouting and Callie's voice was cracking, Scott called Callie stupid. Just like that. Lucky, this fight was a virtual fight, happening on our phones, so I was the only one who knew Callie actually did cry. She was that frustrated, and I understood that better than I could ever say. Then Scott went to talk to his oh so brilliant mother, who basically repeated everything her son and his friend had just said. Things about more ways to get good at math always existing, and laziness and brains. The kind of things that were always wrong because they always came from people who didn't understand it, even if it was their job to understand it, and even if they were good at their jobs. There were very few people who truly understood and didn't have anything wrong with them. So I got mad and said, "We don't give a fuck about what your mum has to say."

I didn't see what was wrong with that, apart from maybe the swearing. I still don't see what was wrong with it. But Scott claimed that I have insulted his mother and from that point on, no one listened to anyone and it was mostly shouting, swearing and cold insults.

"Fuck that kid," I said then, once the fight broke off at last and everyone started talking about the fact that Alex said he was gay, which I didn't find interesting simply because Alex wasn't an interesting person. "Fucking fuck him."

"Firstly, there's no need to swear," said the Doctor gently. "Second, you said yourselves he doesn't understand it and that he's wrong, so what difference does it make?"

"To put it in words even you'd understand," I said, extremely bitterly, no longer giving a shit about not being rude to my imaginary friend, "you'd feel the same way if someone you hated said you were a blood-soaked murderer."

The Doctor didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know you're not blood-soaked and you're not a murderer. I'm sorry I snapped at you. But you don't get it, either."

"Do you realize how teenaged that sounded?" asked the Doctor, apparently forgiving my outburst.

"Yes," I said. "But it's true. No one understands it, ever. No one understands that simply getting in front of my desk to do my homework is impossible for me because I can't bring myself to go through these things. No one understands that numbers make me wanna puke. No one understands that if I do too much math I stop feeling joy and I stop laughing. No one understands just how bloody frustrating everything is. No one understands how this thing works. No one understands that the only thing that can be achieved by putting me in front of school stuff and force me to do it is a quicker suicide. And you know me, I'm not depressed and I'm not suicidal or anything, but if my life ever becomes just studying, killing myself quickly would be the kinder option rather than allowing myself to rot, all the happiness in me slowly seeping out until I'm nothing but a shell."

"So basically studying is a dementor."

I couldn't hold back a smile. "Yes, studying is exactly a dementor." And then I started laughing. "Oh my god, it is!"

The Doctor smiled. "Think about it, though," he said. "Most kids need to study a lot in order to get good marks. You hate studying and never do it, but except for math and sciencey stuff… you're doing fine. You've got good marks, especially for someone who'd rather commit suicide than read the textbook."

"Yeah," I said, my smile going wider. "Suppose I do." And I opened a new Word file.

"What're you doing?" asked the Doctor.

"Oh, you know," I said casually. "Setting up a future for myself."

"You're going to write some fanfiction, aren't you?"

"Possibly," I said. "But it's what I'm best at and I love it so screw you, I'm doing it forever."

"Are you going to write about me?" asked the Doctor with the curiosity of a three year old.

"Nah," I said. "I'm thinking Harry Potter, actually."

So I did.


	5. The Room In My Head

_February 3__rd__, 2014 _

Today was already going pretty badly. My ADD was acting up so bad I could hardly even read (April has finally gotten me started on _The Hobbit_, seeing as I was about ten years late with that book) and I felt like I was constantly on the verge of tears. I was frustrated and short-tempered, and just the day before I found myself curled into a ball on my bed, as if thrown onto it by the sheer force of… well… I really have no idea how to call it, because if I call it _empathy_ I would feel too much like Jerome and too much like someone I don't want to be. But basically, I was devastated because all the fictional characters I like have been doing some really stupid things lately which I did not at all appreciate, and so ended up on my bed as a ball.

So today didn't have much potential of becoming a good day, or even an okay day. Still, I felt quite disappointed about it becoming even worse.

About a month or so earlier, I have failed a math test getting a 50 on it. With lots of persuasion from my friends, I ended up retaking it. I've been waiting for the results for weeks.

So imagine my surprise when Mr. Thompson walked into the classroom and declared he finally got around checking our tests.

Most kids' tests results were ceremonial and there was an air of celebration and relief when he handed them over. Sheila got 79, Scott and Tom both got 80's, Mark got an 88. On the other hand, were the tests that went unmentioned, the ones handed over to their owners silently. Katie got a 40. I wasn't surprised. I loved Katie and she was my friend, but she just didn't try, ever, which was so much sadder than anyone ever seemed to notice. I thought mine was going to be a good one, or at least an okay one, but it wasn't. I got a 47.

When I saw the red number circled in more red on my exam, emotions went flying through me, so quickly I didn't even have time to feel some. My mind settled on anger. Not rage, not fury, just hot, boiling anger. Somewhere among all the unfairness of it, I found myself wondering who I was angry _with_, and found myself incapable of answering. I've had no idea whose fault this was. I knew it wasn't Mr. Thompson's, not really. Well, it probably depended on your point of view. But it wasn't him I was angry with. It wasn't my friends, either, because even though they were the ones who got me to retake the test and got me hopeful, someone else would probably have talked me into it eventually, and anyway that wasn't the point. I wasn't angry with myself, either, which was kind of a mystery on its own since it was completely and entirely my fault. But I just felt angry, angry, angry.

The urge to sob and cry and scream came once, very briefly, when I've been asked how much I got and I spat the answer back at them. After that it was just an urge to scream. So I did. I built myself a white room with no one inside, not even the Doctor, where I could scream as long as I wanted with no one to hear. I had to go into that room more often than I would have like recently.

When my internal screaming subsided, I found my hands restless. I grabbed my pen – black and ballpoint, as I needed them for this task exactly – and created a big black scrabble on the back of my hand. When I ran out of space, I started writing seemingly random letters in my palm, letters that were actually not one bit random and that were actually a song. It was _"Do You Hear the People Sing?"_ from Les Mis this time, though it widely varied.

The lesson was over. For most of us, that meant a boring lesson with our most stupid teacher this year and then math again. For a handful of unlucky kids like me, it meant a slightly more private math lesson instead of that boring one. So that was three straight hours of math. What a time to be alive.

I was listening to Mr. Thompson. I was paying attention, even when I looked like I wasn't. I swear I was. And still, when I was asked a question, there was nothing I could say. There were no words in my head. None at all. I was helpless.

"I see," said Mr. Thompson nastily. "You know what, if you're not going to listen or pay attention, you shouldn't be here at all. Go back to the rest of the class."

"Sure," I said, because I couldn't allow myself to feel, not now, not here. I got up and grabbed my things.

"So that means we've got place for one more," said Mr. Thompson. "Sheila wanted to come, didn't she?"

"Yeah," said Callie.

"I'll call Shelia," I stated plainly and unemotionally because I blocked them all away, and forced myself not to think, not to feel, not to be.

As I left the school library, in which the private-ish lessons were taken, I saw an autistic kid who couldn't speak English with someone in uniform trying to teach him something. I saw three kids from the special education class, who were mentally disabled, also being taught something by someone. It felt important to acknowledge them as I left. I wasn't sure why.

On the way back to class, I walked by our favorite teacher in the whole school, Mrs. Wilson, who was one of the best people I knew.

"Hey, Erin," she said.

"Hi," I said, and suddenly, with no apparent reason, I blurted out, "Mr. Thompson kicked me out of the extra lessons."

Mrs. Wilson stopped and frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Yeah," I said. "Turns out I'm too stupid, so…" I didn't say it in a self-pitying way, because I still refused to feel and I was saying things without being aware of it, not until after the words were already out there.

"Well, at least now you've got less math to worry about," was all she could say.

I walked into class awkwardly. "I got kicked out of extra lessons, so… hi," I told the teacher, who gave a nod with the kind of weird face she usually had when she couldn't understand what was happening. "Oh, and he says there's an opening now so you can come," I told Sheila.

"She won't let me," explained Sheila, referring to our teacher, Miss Brown, who for some reason got annoyed at her, saying she was being rude. I didn't see why.

"Screw math," I told the Doctor in my mind. "I don't need math. I'll manage something without it."

"You can write," said the Doctor. "Maybe you'll publish a book and it would be good."

"Averagely 4,000 new books are published every single day," I said. "How am I supposed to make something out of all that?"

The Doctor shrugged. "You probably won't have to worry about that till later on."

"Well, I'm worried right now," I said. "Fanfiction is easy. Have you ever tried actually writing something completely original? It's not easy."

"You've got years ahead of you," said the Doctor. "In the meantime, just keep your head above the water so that you don't drown. Just make it till the end alright and then you'll be great."

"Fine," I said. "_Fine._"

"Ready for another math lesson?"

"Nope."

"I'm sure it will be fine," he reassured me.

The Doctor was wrong, apparently. This time around, Mr. Thompson was even meaner than usual, until finally Jerome snapped at him and said, "You know, it's hard for some people. Do you understand that? In order to understand geometry you need a very specific kind of visual ability which some people _don't have_. Do you _understand_ that? Or should I speak _slower_ like _you_ do? Cause it doesn't help at all."

Mr. Thompson wasn't any happier after that. Everyone was pretty much appalled by the way Jerome talked to him. They were right to, of course. You can't talk to a teacher like that. And I hated Jerome and thought he was an arrogant and unbelievably pretentious. But I was glad he said it. Maybe now Mr. Thompson will notice that he's been treating us like brainless kids for the past two years.

When the lesson finally ended, I wanted to go to Mr. Thompson. I wanted to ask him what kind of kids he expected to have in his assistance lessons that I was so bad he kicked me out. I mean, you did have to be pretty stupid for that, right? Getting kicked out of the stupid kids' class because you're too stupid? That's something. I wanted to tell him that he was an awful teacher and an even worse person. I didn't. It's probably a good thing.

I'm still screaming in my head.


	6. Love, But Not The Stupid Kind

_February 6__th__, 2014_

Today we talked about our yearbook, because we were finishing middle-school in four months and our school did yearbooks for that. To be frank, we've been talking about our yearbooks for weeks and still haven't really reached any sort of conclusions because our class was our class and was made of stubborn brats. I'm not saying this in an offensive way. They're all my stubborn brats and I love them, even the ones I hate, because they what make my class my home. They make it something familiar and something real, something I want to hang on to forever.

Today we discussed our class theme. Each class had one, except for us, because mutual agreement was a luxury and we didn't have that. Here, it was shouting and fighting and everyone believing they've got it right and refusing to listen to anyone else. I didn't do that. I usually just sat quietly and tried to listen to as many people at the same time as I can in order to figure out the situation and gather my own opinions. Opinions were another thing I didn't have a knack with. While other kids seem to know exactly what they were thinking about everything, I shrugged much more than an average teenager does, which says a lot, I think.

There were lots of themes suggested. I suggested "Support Groups", which was gunned down at once because, well, what if someone did actually get into drugs and his life became awful and they'd actually have to go to support groups but they won't help and they'd die? We'd feel pretty bad then. I guessed that makes sense, though I still thought it was a pretty good idea.

Eventually we chose to divide us all into groups of four and let each group pick its own theme. So obviously, everyone got in with their friends. I was with April, Davin and Katie, and we figured we'd do something fandom related. But then everyone realized that we were creating one group of rejects. That was when Lizzie started crying because she realized _she_ was one of the rejects. She did cry quite often. She didn't really have any friends in our class. I tried feeling bad for her several times but failed miserably, because just the sound of her voice made me want to punch her in the face. She was also incredibly arrogant and looked down on everyone without realizing it. Not a generally nice person to be around.

Now, on Thursdays, me and April and Davin and Katie and Callie and Scott and Jerome stay one more hour after school with Mrs. Wilson and we write. Well, we usually write. On some occasions, like today, we got too caught up in an argument or a discussion or just casual conversation to write.

April, Callie, Scott and Mrs. Wilson said we should get the groups to work strictly by themes and not by people, so that kids like Lizzie, Jerome and Nick don't get left out. That meant we might not be with our friends in the yearbook, because this year they were taking photos of the groups due to budget cuts. At first, Davin and Katie said they'd rather be with their friends and that their happiness was no less important than Lizzie's, but Davin changed his mind and eventually sided with the rest. Katie was very blunt and insisted that she really didn't want it to be done by subjects and that she wanted to be with her friends so that in twenty years, when she opens the yearbooks and looks back, she won't see old hobbies, she'd see old friends. Jerome didn't come to school today.

I didn't really know what I thought, even though I was asked, a bit. Davin didn't believe me when I said I didn't know what I preferred and thought I was lying because I didn't want to say what I thought, and tried to get me to say saying cheesy things like "It's only me" and "We're all friends here".

I did know I wanted to be with my friends. I didn't know if I wanted that enough to spoil things for others. Despite my reputation, I wasn't a generally mean person. People always said I was. I didn't mind, usually, unless they were going too far with saying it. But the one thing that was very clear to me was what Katie said. When I look back to that book twenty years from now, I want to see myself with the people I love. Because I really did love them, and they were my favorite people in the world, and I couldn't picture my life without them. I thought that if I had to pick one thing that made me who I am that I wanted to make an appearance in a stupid yearbook, my friends were that thing. They made me me, and they made me feel significant and they made me feel loved and they made me feel at home, and for that I will always love them.

"It's like you and your companions, is it?" I asked the Doctor later. "This kind of love."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said the Doctor, smiling a little bit sadly. "Not like with Rose and River, though," he added.

"No," I agreed, laughing. "Definitely not like Rose and River."

I looked down at the song written on my hand which I wrote during math class, just because I was bored. It was _Misty Mountains_. Damn April and her stupid Hobbit with his stupid beautiful songs. Damn her brilliance and her love. Damn Davin with his jokes and his curiosity. Damn Katie with her astonishing ferocity. Damn Callie with her random tiny accidental compliments. Damn them all.

"I fucking love them," I told the Doctor. "I should have said that, just now. I should have told them that I love them."

"They know," said the Doctor simply, and I grinned.

"It's so amazing I've found them," I wondered aloud. "Think about it. There are nearly eight billion people on the planet, and I managed to find the best ones. Is that luck, faith or inevitability?"

"I think a little bit of both," said the Doctor.

"To hell with it, I'm naming my kids after them."

"Oh, so you want kids now?"

"God no, they scare me to death."

"I think I found a major flaw in your plan."

I grinned. "I'll have to settle for pets then, when I move out and get enough money to afford one. Or two. Or ten."

"So, ten pets and no kids?"

"Sound about right," I said with a grin. "Never got the point of the romance. Well, I got the point, I just never got why girls completely lose their minds and become obsessed with their boyfriends and have no independent life without him. I'm not being feminist, either, I'm confused about it for guys as well."

The Doctor smirked. "You'll see when you're older."

"Excuse me?" I said. "Did you really just say that? Was I just patronized by my own imaginary friend?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Who said I was your imaginary friend?"

I scoffed. "Don't be stupid. You are because I'm insane. But that's okay." I smiled brightly. "I like being insane. And I like the three stupid letters destroying my life to bits, and I like being mean and I like it when people tell me I'm not good enough because it just gives me the reason to prove them wrong, at least to myself. And I like that my family has zero faith in me because when I'm grown and not a waitress forever like they keep saying they'll see they were wrong and feel bad for giving me a hard time. And I like that I'm reserved because that means I have to deal with less shit than others. And I like _me_. I like me because I'm funny and because I care and because I'm the most awkward person to ever have lived."

The Doctor smiled. "You need more days like these," he said.

I laughed. "I'll work on it," I promised. "Now, get off, you're distracting me."

"From what?"

"I'm trying to read the goddamn Hobbit."


	7. All is Fair in Love and War

**A/N: I didn't update in a while, so I'm sorry in case anyone was hoping I would and I didn't. This fic has little followers and littler favorites, but I'm endlessly grateful for the little I've got, so thank you guys a million.**

_February 13__th__, 2014 _

Something I probably should have told you but didn't: My parents are divorced. They officially separated when I was ten and the actual divorce only finished happening last year because apparently there are lots of people who are after a divorce, which to the young inexperienced emotional girl really isn't very reassuring.

Another thing I probably should have told you but didn't: Both my parents are dating people. Even though I tell Mum differently, I am far from comfortable with it.

You know how you were little and you'd watch your Mum and Dad kiss and you'd go "Ew" because it was the most disgusting thing you've ever seen in your life? Yeah, well, imagine that your Dad was kissing a twenty six year old who wasn't your Mum, and your Mum kissing a man with four daughters. If you can honestly say you'd be fine with it, I envy you.

Dad's girlfriend is pretty irrelevant though, seeing as I only ever saw her twice and I hardly ever see Dad – I don't know why, he just never shows up – but the age is still disturbing. But that's not the _real_ problem. No, no, the _real_ problem is Toby.

Toby is Mum's boyfriend. They've been going out for several months, but apparently it's serious stuff and they're in love or something. Toby comes over a lot, has a band, four daughters and sleeps over far too often for my liking, because if he slept over it probably meant he was having sex with my Mum. Which is strange. And have I mentioned he's got _four daughters_? I only ever met three of them because the oldest, whose my age and called Lacy doesn't really talk to him. Mum says it's because her mother tells her bad things about Toby and that apparently she's not a very good divorced person. The other three are Holly, Sarah and Megan, who are aged four, six and twelve. I'm terrified of little kids and don't know how to act around young ones, so it's pretty intense when I meet them.

Toby's nice. He's witty, and funny, and is one of the few people who know how to talk to my little brother, Michael, because his ADHD is about a thousand times worse than my ADD and most people just think he's insufferable. Few people know better and they include me, Mum, April and Toby, which I suppose is another advantage.

Toby's a better person than my dad. Toby cares about his family more than about his drinks. If he was married to Mum and she told him that the next time he came home drunk she'd kick him out because it puts Michael and me in danger he'd never touch a drink again. He doesn't drive drunk, either, and never has to lie about why he had to walk from his place to ours. He does lots of things he loves. He loves Mum. He loves his daughters.

Dad loved Mum, too. I think maybe he still does, a little. He also loves his kids, but not enough. A man who loves his children should be able to give up drinking for them, but he couldn't. A man who loves his children should come see them regularly and talk to them and do more than say things like "It's sad we've grown apart" to their teenage daughter who really can't have another thing on her mind because reality was hard enough as it was. Dad never managed these things. He never managed to be a good father, which is horrible to everyone involved.

Today was Mum's birthday. Mum wanted to go with us and with Toby and Holly and Sarah to the small town nearby, where only rich people with pets were allowed to live, and where everything was tiny and clean and beautiful. She wanted us to go to a cool park where gravity didn't exist and then go eat somewhere. But Toby's ex-wife wouldn't let him pick up Holly and Sarah from school, so they obviously weren't coming, and Toby was too upset to do anything. So it was just us, which was even better in my opinion.

We went to the park and gravity left, and we walked around for a bit, and we got some books because they were on sale and I loved books, and we went to a really nice café which for some reason had pizza and sushi. I got pizza, and Michael got sushi because that was his favorite food in the world, and that's as good as things ever get when you're nine. And I thought of something a little scary.

"Mum," I said, "if you and Toby live together, where would that be?"

It was a very relevant question, see, because Toby lived in a pretty crappy city a few hours' drive away from home, and I really wasn't planning on moving there for my mum's boyfriend, even if he played guitar.

"Well," said Mum over her coffee, "we thought we either stay, or move here."

At that point, _here _meant the little town. Technically she said they were also thinking about a very central, very overrated city, very far away (two hours by car – it's too far for me because I don't want to have to start a new life and make new friends, definitely not there), but when I expressed my hatred to that place she said we won't go there. So now I had to deal with the aspect of I-might-live-here-one-day, and also with the fact they have already thought about it, which meant they were going more serious than I thought. Since that point, she started saying terrifying little sentences such as, "See that house over there? We checked that one out and quite liked it."

If they moved there, I wouldn't have to start a new life. I wouldn't have to leave my friends. But it would be incredibly uncomfortable. And expensive, though I didn't know Toby's financial state. Therefore, I thought I was being very practical when I kept asking people what was in that town other than the cool park. They all said the same thing, which was "Nothing."

"Why are you so nervous about it?" asked the Doctor.

"You'd be nervous, too, if your Mum would threaten to marry someone and have you all live happily in the cleanest bloody place in the universe."

"You don't know that's what's going to happen," he reminded me. "Maybe they'll break up. Maybe they'll stay here. Or _maybe_," he added, "they are going to move and you'll like it."

"Yeah," I said, grudgingly. "Maybe. But Dad doesn't even know about Toby yet. It's gonna be pretty hard to hide if she gets married and takes us to live in Arrogant Town."

"He's been going out with someone for years."

"So? Doesn't mean he won't be upset."

The Doctor sighed. "Erin, you can't live your life worrying things may or may not upset your father. You might have, once, but that was a long time ago. He lost the right to control your life now."

He was right. I thought it more than I'm comfortable with, because it was true. My dad didn't deserve me or my brother. Not anymore. I leaned against the Doctor's shoulder. We were both sitting on my bed, and I suppose if someone walked into the room it wouldn't even seem that odd – just a girl sitting alone with her head in strange position. I've done weirder things.

"Why does everything needs to be this complicated?" I asked. "Why can't it just be simple?"

"How would you simplify it?" asked the Doctor.

"I'd make Dad forget about us. I'd make us forget about Dad. I'd make myself be more comfortable around Toby. I'd make Michael's ADHD go away – his first, because his is worse – then my ADD. I'd make it so you were real and that I wouldn't be a crazy, stupid girl talking to herself when she feels lonely because that's pathetic and I don't want it."

"Hmm," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Is that all?"

"No," I said. "I'd also make George Martin write faster."

The Doctor laughed. "I thought there would be something like that."

"Are you saying I'm predictable?"

He smiled sadly. "No," he said. "I don't think you're predictable. I think you're everything but predictable."

"Everything..?"

"Only good things," he corrected himself.

"That's more like it," I said smugly. "You're a really awesome imaginary friend, you know that?"

"I'm bound to, seeing as you do and I'm nothing more than a figment of your imagination."

"You are, though," I insisted. "And you're more than a figment of my imagination; you're my friend."


	8. Secret Worlds

**A/N: Hey guys, this one is a lot shorter than usual. Sorry about that, I'm just kind of out of writing material at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be right back on track soon.**

_February 24__th__, 2014 _

Most people only had one world. That was the normal, ordinary, boring world, where they lived, breathed and minded their own business. That counted as okay.

Fangirls and occasionally fanboys had several worlds. The fandom worlds. The worlds where they loved, cried and laughed. That didn't count as okay, but you could make people understand if you tried hard enough. Sometimes you could even let them inside the other worlds.

I had more worlds than that. I had the real world, I had the fandom worlds, and I had my world, the world that was only accessible to me, where nothing mattered and everything could come true, and also where my best and worst sides showed the most. Sometimes I was happy no one could hear what was going through my head. Other times I wished they could, because if they could they would never underestimate me ever again. Sometimes my world was good to have, when I was bored and had to wait for something for a long time and I could just slowly slip into it and lose myself in it. Sometimes it was the worst thing, ever, in any type of world.

Today it was bad.

Let's start with the fact it was a Monday. Besides obvious reasons, Mondays were one of the worst days of the week. It sustained of double physics, which I hated, history, which I hated, P.E, which everyone hated, and three hours of math. Not technically three hours, though. Technically two. I had three, because one was the private-ish lesson exclusively for stupid kids like me. Except they weren't like me, any of them. None of them was ever as stupid.

So today was dull. I spent recesses reading the book _Fangirl _by Rainbow Powell on my phone, which I hated because I wanted a real copy even though the book was amazing either way, even if the cover was technically pink. It really was a great book, and the main character reminded me of myself, but that's a story for another time.

On math, we got back our algebra quizzes. I got a 70. Mr. Thompson said I did well, and I think that made it even worse, because if 70 was well for me, well, I really was an idiot, wasn't I?

When I slip into my world, I don't feel it until I leave it. There's nothing gradual about it. It happens all at once. I'd return to the real world discovering I've been thinking about unrelated things for half an hour and not remember what it was I was thinking about.

I did that. I did a lot of that. Just falling in and out of the truth in the universe.

That would have been okay if I wasn't so sad and disappointed. But still, that could be handled if it wasn't for the private-ish.

Mr. Thompson was relatively nice today. That was good, because if he was in one of his really bad moods he probably would've yelled and I probably would've cried.

I sat there, unmoving, black ink all over my left arm. I was certain my eyes were glossy as well. Mr. Thompson saw something was off, because he kept making sure I was still listening. Then he told us to start solving equations, and I shut my ears and put my face an inch from my notebook to think straight, because everyone was being too loud.

I did that every time.

I think they noticed, because when I removed my hands from my ears I heard Katie saying, "See? It's fine." And Mr. Thompson saying "Okay" in an unsure sort of way.

I didn't say anything because it took me a while to really understand that was what they said. At first it just sounded like meaningless gibberish until I really thought about it closely.

"You'll be fine," said the Doctor in my ear, in my head, I don't know. "You know you'll be fine, it always stops when school is over and you talk to your friends."

It was a good thing he reminded me that, because I really was starting to panic about my brain not working.

"Calm down," he'd say softly when my breathing became too fast and I felt myself freaking out. "Calm down, it's going to go away, it's just the ADD…"

It was good I had the Doctor to help me, because otherwise I would have gone mental years ago. I wished there was really someone there and he would have been more than a voice inside my head, someone I really could hear and someone to wrap his arms around me when I'm scared of myself.

These moments, the moments I was scared and all I could do was pretend to have help, these were the moments I wished my Doctor was real.


	9. Free Track

"Guys!" Nick yelled during recess. "History's been cancelled!"

There was a momentary uproar as nearly everyone cheered loudly. It wasn't that everyone hated history. It actually wasn't so bad. It was just that cancelled lessons were one of the best things in the world. Well, not really, obviously, but it was great when it happened.

"Let's play the rape game," said Nick.

The rape game wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. It just had an unfortunate nickname around dark-humor loving teenagers. In the game, a bunch of kids had to sit in a circle with their legs spread wide, and a kid had to sit between their legs, creating an inner circle. A kid from the inner circle had to name two kids from the inner circle. The two kids had to try to reach the kid who called them, and the kid behind them had to stop them. The kid who reached the caller first got to call the next two kids. It was much more violent than sexual, usually. We did have some perverts in our class. I usually sucked at holding people back and didn't like _being_ held back, so I didn't play it much.

"No, let's play the parliament," said Katie.

The parliament was a much more civilized game. In this one, everyone sat on chairs in a circle except for four kids, who sat in a straight row which was part of the circle. That row was the parliament. There were two groups, usually boys and girls (even though we only had seven girls and twenty boys – we usually just got some boys to play with the girls), and the goal of each group was for the parliament to consist of players from their own group only. Each kid got a piece of paper with the name of another player. There was an empty chair in the circle, and the player left to it had to call someone's name. The person who had that someone's name on his paper had to get up and sit in the empty chair, then switch notes with the player who called them. It was actually very difficult and needed some serious memory. I usually sucked and got bored, so I didn't play it much.

"Erin!" called Callie. "Are you playing?"

I shook my head and pulled _The Fellowship of the Ring _out of my backpack. After _The Hobbit_, I had no choice but continue to _Lord of the Rings_. It was difficult to concentrate on the book with all the noise, but I made an effort. It was a good book, but I couldn't really get into it yet. It was probably going to be _Game of Thrones _all over again. It took me ages to finish the first book, but after that everything went smoothly. Mostly. Sometimes I would throw one of the books across the room with frustration and not pick it up for a while. But that was normal. Sometimes.

It's been about fifteen minutes since Nick came in shouting about our forty-five minutes of freedom when it happened.

At first, it was just wind. I thought Katie left the window open again, but she didn't, and it was strange because the door was closed and there was no way wind could get in.

Then we heard the sound, and I thought maybe someone was playing it on their phone as a joke, but when I looked at the faces of the people I have known for two to six years I saw no one was smirking or smiling or trying to act innocent. Hardly anyone even had a phone in their hands. That was the part my heart stopped.

After the sound followed the last and final part. Good thing the tables were cleared away, because right in the middle of the room, _exactly _in the middle of the room, the TARDIS was materializing.

It took about 1.3 seconds for everyone to get up and start shouting and swearing and basically panicking. Lizzie was crying again. About a third of us were Whovians, at least by title, so everyone knew a TARDIS when they saw one. And even if they wouldn't have, there would still be a big blue box that has randomly appeared in the room. Panicking was the most reasonable thing to do. The phrase "Oh my god what the fuck" seemed to be a popular choice. I went for that one and kind of repeated it multiple times, each time just slightly differently. I could say it screaming, I could say it quietly, I could say it half-crying with anxiety, or I could just scream it in my head. Sometimes all at once. Through the commotion, I noticed it was the Eleventh TARDIS, though I couldn't determine which one without going in. That seemed to be the next issue everyone was getting at.

"Maybe we should just… walk in?" suggested Katie.

"Maybe knock first," added Davin.

"Shouldn't we get a teacher?" asked Barry.

Then people started wondering whether we _should_ get a teacher. It was the right thing to do. The _smart_ thing to do. The _safe_ thing to do. But that was never how it worked. Not when there was a TARDIS in the room. When TARDISes began to materialize in school, you were supposed to throw right, smart and safe aside and jump into the deep water for no reason, weren't you?

"Okay, okay, okay," said Callie. "Let's _some of us_ go in, and the rest stay here and maybe get a teacher if things get really tense."

It sounded like a good idea to me. To those who didn't like it we just said, "Don't go, then."

It took a few minutes to determine who was going. There were no non-Whovians on our expedition, and some of the Whovians stayed behind. I wasn't going to. I did hope there was nothing overly dangerous inside, though. I didn't fancy dying just when things finally got awesome. I didn't really fancy dying at all, of course, but I was still freaking out. Everyone was. I tried not to think about ways to die. I concentrated on not crying for the moment.

"April," I said more calmly than I felt, "if when we get inside I start screaming and faint, it's probably nothing fatal and just me being excited. Just so that you're not alarmed."

"Gotcha," said April. "Same goes for me."

"Let's go," said Callie and pushed the doors open.

The first thing that became clear was that it was the Eleventh second TARDIS, the one he got after the Ponds left. Or maybe it was after River left. I had no way of knowing. The second was that there was no one in the console room.

"It's empty," someone said, stating the obvious.

"That's really not good," I said.

"Never mind that, _look _at this place!" said Katie.

I smiled. "We have to say it," I said.

"Oh my god we really have to say it," agreed April.

"We're saying it!" yelled Katie. "Now –"

"It's bigger on the inside!" we all said, and it was simple and true and amazing and I wanted to cry again.

"Seriously though," I said. "Where's the Doctor? He should be here."

"Maybe we should… look for him?" suggested Shill awkwardly. "Something could be wrong."

"Of course something's wrong, we've got a bloody TARDIS in our classroom!" I pointed out.

"You know what I mean," he said impatiently. "It doesn't make sense."

"Shill's got a point," Callie said, even though she hated Shill. "We should split up. Look for him."

There were murmurs and nods as everyone thought it over and agreed.

"So if anyone finds him or anything really interesting, we all have phones, yeah?" asked Callie.

"Erin," called April. "C'mon. Davin, you're with us?"

Davin nodded. "Yeah, let's go," he said, as if we were going for a walk in the park.

Everyone split up. There were several exits out of the console room, and each exit went into corridors and in each corridor there were doors leading to god knows where. Quickly enough, I was walking along an alien ship with my best friends, wondering if the Doctor was dead.

"It's quite strange," said April. "All those times you've gone completely mental after things like episodes and fanfiction and headcanons, and now it's actually happening and you're perfectly calm, Erin."

"Yeah, I thought about it, too," I admitted. "It's probably just the shock. I don't think everything sank in yet. I'm probably going to fully understand the situation and my knees will buckle just when we need my knees to not buckle. How come _you're_ so calm?"

"Same reason, probably," she said. "We're practically the same person. What about you, Davin?"

Davin shrugged. "Same, I guess," he said.

"No, but you know what would be really cool?" I said. "If you two got together in the TARDIS."

"Erin, for the love of god –"

"Just because Michael said –"

"I know, I know, but I'm shipping you until the end of my days," I said. "Even though you don't actually make sense together at all and you'd be much better off with other people."

"D'you think everything else is real, too?" asked Davin. "All the other fandoms?"

"I don't know," said April. "I'm still trying to figure out how _this _one can be real."

"Maybe it's not," I said. "Maybe it's a dream."

"Whose dream?" asked April.

I shrugged. "Could be anyone's. We'll never know. Hell, it could be Jerome's, though I doubt he has Doctor Who dreams."

"What are we actually looking for?" asked Davin.

"Probably just something really interesting or alive," I said. "Or both."

"Hmm."

We walked silently for a few minutes, but we reached a dead end. There were three doors in front of us, and it seemed obvious what we were expected to do. That didn't make anyone any less reluctant to do so.

"That's a really bad idea," said April.

"A terrible idea," agreed Davin.

"The worst," I said mournfully. "But we have to, don't we? Maybe it's the TARDIS rearranging the place so that we all get exactly where we're supposed to."

"It's amazing that in times like this you can talk like it's something natural," April wondered aloud.

I shrugged. "It's not that much different of making theories," I said. "You know, like when you're watching a new episode and you start trying to figure out how everything rolls out in the end. It's the same thing, except now you have to avoid making depressing death theories. I'm taking the left one," I added, referring to the door at the far left.

"I'll take the middle one," said April.

"Guess I'm taking the right one," said Davin. "Obviously."

"Well, if any of you die, I hope it's not painful," I told them. "If _I_ die, I fucking love you guys. See you in our reserved part of hell." And I walked through the left door. The moment I passed it, it closed with a metallic hiss. I turned, only to see it fade away, and become part of the wall.

"Okay," I whispered to myself. "Okay, I can play that game."

I continued walking. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where anyone else was. I didn't know who or what else was inside. I was getting properly scared now, and I didn't like it. I didn't like the paralyzing sensation in my chest, and I didn't like that I felt like crying, and I didn't like that I wanted to go home because at the same time I also wanted to stay as far away from home as possible because this was an adventure. It was a terrifying adventure, yes. It made half the things I used to believe in wrong. It made about a quarter of what I wished to believe in true, and that was good because the things that turned out to be wrong were things I never wanted to believe in. Things that said what could and what could not exist. Things that said what I could and what I could not do. What I could or could not _be_. I was happy these were gone. I was happy the new rules of life were in my head. I was happy for whatever was wrong with me, because it didn't let me walk alone.

"You're real, too, aren't you?" I asked the Doctor, my Doctor.

"I might be," he said. "I'm not sure."

"You have to be," I insisted. "Your TARDIS is real, so you are, too."

"How do you know she's real?" asked the Doctor. "You might be dreaming."

"It's not a dream," I said. "I know it isn't. You're never in my dreams."

He smiled, and took my hand, and I wasn't so scared when I walked through the strange corridors.

It was funny, because the corridor went on for too long. Just a corridor, no doors or turns or anything, for far too long. I suspected that TARDIS was messing things up, but maybe I was just being paranoid. So after about ten minutes of just walking and walking and walking, when I saw a door it came as a relief. I didn't stop to think what might be behind it when I opened it and walked into a room.

_I know this room_ was the first thought that sprung to mind. I remembered seeing it during _Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS_. It had a bunch of shelves and cabinets and looked like an old storage room. But I didn't pay any attention to the content of the room. Everything focused on the man sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and looking at me.

"Hello," I said sheepishly. My Doctor was gone. Fear threatened to take over. I swallowed nervously.

"What are you doing here?" snarled the man, getting to his feet. "Who are you?"

I wanted to speak. Honestly, I did. But somehow I couldn't get the words out, because I looked up and I saw the Doctor, the real Doctor, flesh and blood and everything, looking at me suspiciously.

"Who are you?" he asked again.

"I- my name's Erin," I blurted. "Your TARDIS kind of landed in my classroom."

He frowned. "Why would she do that?" he muttered. "This universe is wrong; she would've gone somewhere she could get the energy to get out of it, why would she go to some school?"

"Sorry?" I said awkwardly. "Wrong universe?"

"Yes, I got here by accident," he said, sounding distracted. "The TARDIS couldn't get out at first, so she landed somewhere she could, I was just waiting for it to fuel up, but _why_ –" he stopped abruptly. "Why did you go inside, anyway? Wasn't there a teacher?"

"No," I said. "We had a free track."

"Are there any more of you inside?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry. Erm, maybe ten kids. I'm not sure. But they know not to do anything stupid. Most of them do, anyway."

"Did you get grown-ups first?"

"No."

"Good," he said, smiling for the first time. He didn't stop smiling. In fact, his smile just widened and turned into a grin, and he looked like he just came to a realization that was making him very excited.

"What?" I asked. "Why are you grinning?"

"Oh, Erin," he said. "A bunch of human kids, running into the unknown all on their own. The human race…"

"Well, we didn't want to get any adults," I said reasonably. "They wouldn't react well to a goddamn TARDIS standing in the middle of a classroom. And it's not like we could just stay outside."

"Yeah, I know," he said, the grin not leaving his face. "I got famous in this universe. Must be our universe leaking through. It's amazing, really. It's why I keep travelling. There's always something else out there to take me by surprise."

"But why would the TARDIS come here?" I asked. "Was our school built on ground filled with special energy or something? Because it that's the reason it really sucks."

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "Probably something about the school itself."

"The school?" I repeated, confused. "There's nothing special about it. No one gives a damn about the middle school so the high school gets all the funds. It's a pretty shitty school, to be honest. Not the best population, either." I paused, realizing I swore. "Sorry. But really, the only thing that's out of ordinary you might find in our school is my class, and that's just because we're all fucking weird." I cringed. "Sorry again. I can't help it."

The Doctor seemed to ignore my swearing. Maybe the TARDIS filtered it out in the translation. "What do you mean?" he asked. "What's out of ordinary about your class?"

"Well," I said, "Um. Sorry, but I have no idea how to say it without sounding arrogant. Uh, we're all gifted kids?"

The Doctor frowned, and he looked like he was trying to remember something so I stayed quiet. Then his whole expression changed into one of realization and he exclaimed, "Oh!"

"Eleven, your Ten is showing," I blurted before I could stop myself. Thankfully, he ignored that.

"Of course!" he continued in amazement.

"What?" I asked, curious and confused.

"Every creature in the universe is constantly emitting energy," he explained, speaking so quickly I was surprised I could understand what he was saying. "It's a different kind of energy for every race in the universe, but you get the general idea. Humans have a very specific kind of energy, a kind of energy that can be found nowhere else in the whole universe. Hell, in the whole of reality, probably. But here's where it gets interesting: every human being emits it slightly differently. You get the highest amount of energy with children, and it gets lower the older you get. And then there are amazing human beings, endlessly brilliant individuals, and they have even _more_ of that energy. So what's the perfect place to get as much of that energy as you can? A room, _filled_ with brilliant teenagers. The TARDIS must have needed that energy to get back to my universe."

"That's great," I said calmly. "That's really great and amazing, but it's not right."

He stopped. His excited grin vanished. "What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.

"Well…" I hesitated. "Why would my class be the ideal place for this energy? I get what you're saying, but if that's true then that makes my friends, _me_, the peak of humanity, and how can the peak of humanity be a bunch of teenagers? I mean, there are maybe three of us who aren't completely fucked up. _Sorry_. I mean… we're not the peak of humanity. We're just… not."

The Doctor frowned more deeply than ever. "Why do you say that?" he asked softly.

"Because," I said. "Because we have a kid who still picks his nose in public. And another who's as dumb as a ruddy brick. And one who can't keep quiet for two minutes. And one who's always crying for no reason. And one who's had imaginary friends for as long as she can remember and her mind is driving her mad and her dad makes promises he can't keep." I stopped abruptly. "Shit," I mumbled. "I'm just… it can't be right. It just can't."

The Doctor's smile was soft now, but his eyes didn't have pity in them. I was relieved. I didn't want the Doctor of all people to feel sorry for me. I wished I would have stayed silent, but it was too late for that.

"You're supposed to tell the other when you've found me, aren't you?" the Doctor asked.

I nodded.

"Tell them," he ordered. "Tell them to go back to the console room. The TARDIS will make sure they don't get lost."

I smiled. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent a text. _Found him. He says go to the console room._ I put my phone back into my pocket and looked at the Doctor expectantly. He grinned again and walked through a second door in the room I didn't notice before. I followed him and discovered we were back in the console room. I didn't question it.

It took everyone about two minutes to show up. They were all running, and the TARDIS helped them out a bit. Needless to say, they were more than a little excited to see the Doctor, who took it rather well. Some kids like Scott and Shill, who were convinced there were many mistakes in many episodes, had many questions for him. I was elated to see him prove their doubts wrong. Even Shill, who hadn't admitted to be wrong in his life, seemed quite reluctant to keep arguing.

April, Davin and I had quite the reunion, even though we were only apart for about fifteen minutes. They didn't see anything interesting, except for April who found the swimming pool, but were equally excited over discovering there was a universe in which it was all real.

Then the Doctor pointed at a light bulb on the console. It was glowing in bright green.

"See that?" he asked me quietly. "That means I've got enough energy. A TARDIS requires _a lot _of energy. Now, I'd say a few teenagers managing to supply enough power for a TARDIS to switch universes in less than twenty minutes is quiet impressing, don't you?" I smiled, and he added, "you lot are most definitely the peak of humanity, and if anyone tells you differently then they're _wrong_. Okay?" I nodded, feeling happier than I have in a long time. Then his words fully registered.

"So you're already going?" I asked him.

"I have to," he said sadly. "I need to go back to my universe."

"It's alright," I said. "We still have you. Not the real you, but the next best thing. Plus you can't get killed watching a TV show, right?"

The Doctor laughed at that.

Then we said goodbye, and we walked out, and we ignored the stunned looks of everyone who stayed behind when the TARDIS faded away, and my smile was the widest.

I never felt worthless again in my life.

**A/N: That's it, guys. That's the end of this fic. It's been a blast, and I love you all and I can never thank you enough for your support. See you around, you crazy arseholes.**


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